NEWPORT NEWS, Va., Oct. 31, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Huntington Ingalls Industries (NYSE:HII) announced today that its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.20 per share, an increase of $0.10 or 100 percent over the $0.10 per share dividend paid in each of the four prior quarters. The $0.20 per share dividend will be payable on Dec. 13, 2013, to shareholders of record on Nov. 29, 2013.

The Board of Directors also has authorized an increase in the company's stock repurchase program from $150 million to $300 million and an extension of the term of the program from Oct. 31, 2015, to Oct. 31, 2017.

"We are pleased to announce a doubling of HII's quarterly cash dividend and an increase in our share repurchase program to our shareholders," said Mike Petters, HII's president and chief executive officer. "These increases demonstrate continued confidence in our 2015 financial target of 9-plus percent operating margins as well as our commitment to a balanced capital allocation strategy."

Purchases under the stock repurchase program may be made from time to time in the discretion of management in the open market, through privately negotiated transactions or through other means, are subject to prevailing market conditions and other factors, and may be suspended or discontinued at any time.

The Company

Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) designs, builds and maintains nuclear and non-nuclear ships for the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard and provides after-market services for military ships around the globe. For more than a century, HII has built more ships in more ship classes than any other U.S. naval shipbuilder at its Newport News Shipbuilding and Ingalls Shipbuilding divisions. Employing more than 37,000 in Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana and California, HII also provides a wide variety of products and services to the commercial energy industry and other government customers, including the Department of Energy. For more information, please visit: www.huntingtoningalls.com.

Statements in this release, other than statements of historical fact, constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed in these statements. Factors that may cause such differences include: changes in government and customer priorities and requirements (including government budgetary constraints, shifts in defense spending, and changes in customer short-range and long-range plans); our ability to obtain new contracts, estimate our costs and perform effectively; risks related to our spin-off from Northrop Grumman (including our increased costs and leverage); our ability to realize the expected benefits from consolidation of our Ingalls facilities; natural disasters; adverse economic conditions in the United States and globally; and other risk factors discussed in our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. There may be other risks and uncertainties that we are unable to predict at this time or that we currently do not expect to have a material adverse effect on our business, and we undertake no obligations to update any forward-looking statements.